The present disclosure relates to circuits and methods for amplifying signals.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Many electronic systems process electronic signals for a variety of purposes. In some electronic systems, electronic signals may represent real world phenomena such as sounds (audio) or images (video). Other electronic systems may process electronic signals pertaining to operating conditions of the system, for example. A basic building block of many electronic systems is the amplifier. Amplifiers may be used to change particular parameters of the electronic signals. For example, amplifiers may be used to increase voltage, current, or power.
One challenge with constructing an amplifier circuit is maintaining the integrity of the electronic signal being processed. For example, amplifier circuits may introduce undesirable distortion or noise in the electronic signal. Such distortion or noise may degrade the performance of the electronic system using the signal. Another challenge with building amplifier circuits pertains to power consumption. Many amplifiers may have high signal integrity, but may consume large amounts of power to maintain such integrity. Such inefficient amplifiers may not be useful for battery operated applications, such as portable phones or other similar devices, for example.